So, I woke up a few weeks ago on a Wednesday morning, about 20 minutes after my 6am alarm went off for work. I felt aaaawful. Nauseated and headache-y, all that fun stuff. My stomach tends to get nauseated when I’m stressed or have been burning the candle at both ends for too long, so this wasn’t alarming. Just really inconvenient.

I went ahead and showered and made myself some coffee, hoping that I could perk myself a bit before work. Unfortunately, after drinking my coffee and getting cleaned up, I was still feeling light-headed and a Dizzy Sam really shouldn’t be attempting the 30min commute to work, so I had to call in sick.

So, there I was. It was, like, seven o’clock in the freaking morning and I was sick and exhausted, BUT already caffeinated, so I couldn’t possibly go back to sleep.

I took shelter in my bead room.

Apparently, my muse works best when exhausted and queasy at the crack of freaking dawn, because this happened.

Like, seriously?!? Apparently, early morning sunlight and the quiet of my bead room are serious creative fodder. So, I decided to name this new design the Daybreak bracelet.

It’s my very first pattern to utilize MiniDuos, which is exciting. AND it only takes, like 10-15 SuperDuos, so it’s great for finishing off the almost empty tubes.

I also don’t have a lot of patterns that call for 6mm beads, so I have had a blast going through my collection of Czech druks and Swarovski pearls. The pink one below uses Swarovski pearls in the newest pearl color – Pearlescent White.

And you can use semi-precious stones, like Pyrite (Fool’s Gold)…

Or turquoise! (Yeah, this bracelet was WAY out of my comfort zone, but it was fun!)

I am really excited about this dainty, art-nouveau bracelet. I’ve started sleeping more and taking care of myself better, so the sicky feeling is gone, but I am definitely going to experiment with designing early in the morning. I’ll report back with my findings!